The Trick Is to Keep Believing
by Ruuger
Summary: What would it take for Doggett to start believing. Missing scene for Audrey Pauley. Written in 2004.


**Author's notes: **All I have to say is that I'd like to give a big hug to my betareader Cassie.

* * *

I watch her as she sleeps.

She looks beautiful, even in this god-awful light. Her face, the way her hair creates a dark halo around her head, everything. How is it that I never noticed it before. She's beautiful.

Her eyes are closed, and I can't remember what color they are. Please, Monica, open your eyes. I want to know what they look like.

She sleeps, and I dare not try to wake her.

How did we come to this? I love Dana, loved Dana, I was certain of it. It was safe to love her because I knew she did not love me, because I knew she loved Mulder, because I knew my love for her would remain unrequited. It was safe to love Dana. Our love would remain perfect, unfading, unchanging, because it was all in my head. There'd be no disappointments.

Disappointment. There's that word again.

Maybe I'm just thick, but I didn't realize what Monica felt for me before that conversation in the car. She told me - in her own way - and all I came up as a reply was "See you monday". It took me a car accident to realize what I felt for her and how much she meant for me. To realize that I was afraid. Afraid of disappointing her, of being disappointed myself, because isn't that what love is really about. Disappointments.

We have known each other for almost nine years and I don't even remember what color her eyes are. In nine years I have never really noticed her. All those years I took her for granted, never really admitting that without her I would probably be dead.

Ever since Luke died, ever since my divorce, she has been my lifeline, my defense against insanity. Always just a phone call away with her 'feelings' and 'vibes' and 'intuitions' like some 1-800 psychic hotline. I'd laugh at her beliefs, mock them, joke about them, but even if I didn't believe what she believed, I kept calling, dialing her number whenever reality seemed too much to bear, and for some reason she listened.

She sleeps and I watch, wishing I had the courage to wake her.

In my mind I sit down on the bed and kiss her to wake her from her dream, just like in the story. One kiss, and she wakes up. I owe that to her, but I'm afraid. Afraid that she doesn't wake. It's too late to believe in fairy tales.

She lies on the bed, sleeping.

No, not sleeping, dead.

"There's no measurable electrical activity in her brain. Brain death is indeed death, John."

Don't say that Dana. She's alive, I know it. She's only asleep.

"I'm sorry."

I don't care what you believe, Dana. I believe she's not gone. I believe. I want to believe.

When Luke disappeared I refused to believe the psychics and other nutcases who wanted to help, and when we found him dead, I kept on not believing because I had to be sure that I had done everything possible to get him back. Now I'm not so sure. What if we didn't find him because I refused to believe? What if one of those nutcases really could have helped?

What if I could have saved him if I had simply believed?

I wish I could talk to Monica. I wish I could just pick up the phone and call her, like I have always done. I'd call her and she'd explain everything to me. She'd talk about karma and souls and faith healing and even if I didn't believe anything she said, somehow things would be better, somehow the world would make more sense.

Now, nothing makes sense. It doesn't make sense how she could be gone if I can see her and touch her, if she lies here on the bed in front of me, when I believe with every single cell of my body that she's only sleeping. Dana and the doctors, they say she's dead, but I can't accept that. I want to believe she's alive.

I look at Dana, and I know she doesn't understand. To her Monica is already dead. Monica would understand, and that's what makes all this so damn ironic. Monica would believe.

I watch her as she lies on the bed, dead.

No, not dead, sleeping. Not dead until I stop believing and this time I will believe.

This time it will end differently.


End file.
